Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Atom
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Atom is a free and open source text editor offering a range of packages and themes.N/A
Eclipse
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Eclipse is a free and open source integrated development environment (IDE).N/A
IntelliJ IDEA
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE that aims to give Java and Kotlin developers everything they need out of the box, including a smart code editor, built-in developer tools, framework support, database support, web development support, and much more.
$19.90
per month
Pricing
AtomEclipseIntelliJ IDEA
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
For Individual Use (Monthly billing)
$19.90
per month
For Organizations (Monthly billing)
$71.90
per month
For Individual Use (Yearly billing)
$199
per year
For Organizations (Yearly billing)
$719
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AtomEclipseIntelliJ IDEA
Free Trial
NoNoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll Products Pack (For Individual Use) – $299 /1st year, $ 239 /2nd year and $ 179 /3d year onwards All Products Pack (For Organizations) – $979 / year
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AtomEclipseIntelliJ IDEA
Considered Multiple Products
Atom
Chose Atom
I like Atom because it is simple and not too complicated. Configurable, full-featured, yet remains nimble. You can not beat the cost of Open Source, so this leaves software like BBEdit out in the cold. Atom is not as hardcore as Vim or Emacs. Less complicated than full IDEs …
Chose Atom
Atom is not as great for Android development as Android Studio, as great for iOS development as Xcode, C# for Visual Studio, or even Java with Eclipse. Atom is less-preferred for any of those platforms for me. However, it is my preferred IDE for just about every other …
Chose Atom
Not listed is Vim, which is another free-form editor that is in the same product category. Vim and Emacs are both supported on more platforms and with lower systems requirements and similar versatility, but don't offer the ease of use (both being primarily keyboard-only …
Chose Atom
Our company likes to keep things open, and we don't want to prevent developers from customizing their environment the way they want. Atom seemed to be a lot more open than our existing tools and has good community support on pretty much any programming language. This can create …
Chose Atom
Atom and Visual Studio Code are so similar it's hard to not compare them. But for new users, Atom is the clear winner. If you are looking for a clean interface, Atom is the winner. There aren't as many buttons and distractions in Atom which makes it very easy to just pick up …
Eclipse
Chose Eclipse
NetBeans is the closest competitor I've found to Eclipse for Java development. IntelliJ IDEA is good as well but it isn't free. NetBeans is a free competitor that has split the Java community, and a lot of it comes down to preference, like the famous vim vs. emacs wars. I would …
Chose Eclipse
Compared to IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse is free of charge and that is the main advantage for me. Over the time I got used to Eclipse, I didn't want to switch even though I could, because all I need is there and it works like a charm. Compared to NetBeans, I found the community of …
Chose Eclipse
1. Eclipse is easy to use.
2. when you are new to building something you can go for Eclipse as it provides a clean UI.
3. Provide support to connect with other tools and technology.
Chose Eclipse
IntelliJ is a good IDE as well. Any motivated user can't go wrong focusing on one and then deeply learning it, and it will pay off in productivity. Note of course that one is free the other is not! I find Eclipse is stronger at managing very large projects.
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse is far better than NetBeans. But when compared to IntellijIdea Eclipse is a good choice when it comes to handling large projects and costs. Eclipse has room to improve on its UI and IntelliSense.
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse stands out with its feature set, reliability, and being completely free of charge. I have previously used NetBeans but had reliability issues with it, at least on Windows version. IDEA has modern UI and is significantly more user friendly than Eclipse; however, the free …
Chose Eclipse
[In my opinion,] Eclipse is the worst IDE for java right now.
Chose Eclipse
They are both great IDEs and we use both. IntelliJ may have a larger community so there are more plugins available, which means it could be a better choice for some specific types of projects.
Chose Eclipse
As previously said, Eclipse is one of the most complete and useful tools for Java development. And as a plus, it's open-source and free, so you won't beat that price-quality relation. When starting with Java projects, you won't fail with Eclipse. But, if you are getting into …
Chose Eclipse
As compared to NetBeans, Eclipse is much faster. NetBeans needs to have JDK 1.8 which sometimes creates problems if your system already has a higher version installed, besides it has a glassfish server which is hard to configure. Integration of MySQL or other database is …
Chose Eclipse
First thing, Eclipse is free. So zero cost as compared to other alternatives. Eclipse has tons of tools/plugins for better development/testing, helping devs, making their lives easier.
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse offers all the features in the other IDEs but without any cost. It also is memory efficient as compared to other IDEs. Various themes are available in eclipse and we can customize it according to our needs very easily. The Windows Toolkit allows us to build desktop …
Chose Eclipse
As I already said, Eclipse might not have all the features supported by IntelliJ. However, the variety of plugins available in Eclipse make it much flexible to work with. Another main reason to go for this product was because of price (free). Since I worked for a startup, the …
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse was used for 3-5 years until IntelliJ became the more preferred IDE because IntelliJ has better code formatting, presentation, and navigation between different types of files. IntelliJ has a shorter learning curve and setup is easier especially for less experienced …
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse and NetBeans are open-sourced and does not require a license to use the software. However, Eclipse has a wide selection of plugins to choose from to integrate any tools within the workspace, making development more accessible, and reducing the developer effort.
Chose Eclipse
These are all very similar in what they can do, and so they all stack up very similarly. I personally have found that Eclipse did a little bit better when it came to programming with java and so that is why we went with it for the classes coding in Java.
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse used to be the defacto standard for code development. But in recent years, as it has started focusing on its other products, like Orion and Che, it's core IDE (with focus on the 'I'), has seen a slowdown in its prominence. It cannot be compared to just the massive …
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse is the best IDE on the market for Java development. It has great error and warning handling, and many integrations with useful tools - debugger, sonarqube (static code analysis), Maven / Gradle / Ant, Tomcat / Wildfly / JBoss (web servers). The best part of eclipse is …
Chose Eclipse
I used IDEA prior to using Eclipse. I loved how easy I can debug in both, but the debugging feature in IDEA is just way more polished then Eclipse. Other than that, Eclipse was easy to setup and start with.
Chose Eclipse
For no license, Eclipse is a very good start. IntelliJ has much greater support and tools for many things like connecting to all kinds of databases and SaaS platform such as Salesforce. Code refactoring is also very cool on IntelliJ compared to Eclipse. For Python and Django …
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse looks better (though this is a matter of taste). All this fuss about SWT and native controls was worth it. Eclipse looks like a solid well thought-out application with pretty fonts and icons, while IDEA at first glance looks like a stunt toy with lame hack icons and …
Chose Eclipse
We compared Eclipse primarily with IntelliJ, and the thing we liked about Eclipse was the support for plugins which makes it really customizable. The other features that we liked were the multitasking, filtering and debugging which are very carefully designed by keeping in mind …
Chose Eclipse
They are very similar but eclipse has greater availability of plugins that allow you to achieve much more satisfactory results, in the products that are developed, the basic configurations are a bit more difficult than in NetBeans but they are much more specific and much more …
Chose Eclipse
Eclipse is better than NetBeans from many perspectives. IntelliJ is even better than Eclipse, but it is not for free
Chose Eclipse
The community around Eclipse keeps the product updated and (mostly) clean of errors. There is no commercial owner of Eclipse, so innovation is top priority for the project which leads to be more open, customizable and friendly to the users. IntelliJ is a good competitor, but …
IntelliJ IDEA
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Since we are primarily a Scala shop, I only evaluated other tools based on their support for Scala. As I hinted at before, Vim and Sublime Text 3 have practically no support for Scala as all the Scala plugins that worked were never finished and abandoned and only work for Scala …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ is a full featured IDES and has the most advanced set of features for developing web and desktop applications. It supports integration of the Spring framework which is necessary for web development. It supports web app scripting languages and web development …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
I have used Eclipse also in the past. But it is slow compared to IntelliJ, it does not offer as many features as IntelliJ offers, and the integrations with third-party tools is not great. But they are open-source and they don't charge anything whereas IntelliJ charges $500 per …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Much more functionality and freedom than in Eclipse, but it cost you money while the second is free.
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Against competition I can say about IntelliJ that:
1. It is definitely faster and efficient than other IDEs. Comparing with Eclipse it emerges as a clear winner in terms or raw performance.
2. More feature Rich with great support for modern technologies. It has great support for …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
UI--IntelliJ IDEA is the winner.
IntelliSense--Again, IntelliJ IDEA is the winner.
Performance and CPU usage - IntelliJ IDEA has a lot of room to improve on this. Eclipse handle the large projects more effectively than IntelliJ IDEA.
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS) requires a lot of textual configuration, where IntelliJ IDEA provides a graphical interface with configuration options displayed. This matters a lot to me as I don't want to hunt around the internet to remember how to set different parameters …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Previously we were using Eclipse but due to the ease of understanding and easy to navigate user interface with drop downs, wizards they are better in IntelliJ moreover for experienced developers migrating to IntelliJ as compared to Eclipse. It has an easy to understand UI and …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Eclipse is just so old, like a dinosaur, compared to IntelliJ. There are still formats that Eclipse supports better, especially old and/or propriety ones. Still, most of the modern software development needs can be done on IntelliJ, & in a much better way, some of them are not …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ stacks better against Eclipse or vs code because it provides better code suggestions, out-of-the-box SonarLint integration, and built-in support for version control with git. It also has a vast collection of plugins that can increase developer productivity, reduce …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
In summary, IntelliJ is more polished and feature-rich out of the box, especially for Java development. Eclipse is extensible but can be rougher around the edges. IntelliJ costs money for advanced features, while Eclipse is free. IntelliJ offers many developers a better …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Back in the day, there weren't too many PHP IDEs with proper syntax and code checks, but PHPStorm and IDEA worked great. So great that when I needed a Java IDE the next time, I gave it a go and have never looked back since (okay, I did keep checking the competition and …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
It is much more friendly to use and has more features in terms of leading to more efficient and productive software engineers. I prefer the interface as well as the code Completion/code refactoring and error suggestions
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Compared to the other alternatives, IntelliJ is more complete, modern and robust. The other alternatives are dated and do not have features that exist by default in IntelliJ.
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ has the richest and most complete set of features out of all the IDEs I've tried. There is the most compatibility across different languages and caters to different compilation strategies. The updates come very regularly, so we know that the product is constantly …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ IDEA is one of the products of JetBrains and it beats every IDE in the market in terms of performance, user experience, and productivity.

Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ surpassed every single competitor. The only viable alternative I still use is VisualStudio Code build in a browser for demo purposes... other than that, IDEA does everything better, faster, and in a more comfy way. This is the best IDE out there. This is just as good …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ IDEA includes FTP deployment which is ideal for legacy web applications and simple projects that don't use CI/CD. The outline view which lists methods within a class (ColdFusion component) is the easiest to use out of any other IDE and makes navigating large files a …
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ is very much focused on user-friendliness which I'm very fond of.
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
I think IntelliJ has more features and is more friendly for plugin or add-on developments. IntelliJ also suites better for large companies.
Chose IntelliJ IDEA
Out of all three, IntellIj is the best. The other two are light weight but don't have the plugins or code quality that Intellij provides.
Best Alternatives
AtomEclipseIntelliJ IDEA
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 8.8 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 9.5 out of 10
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 8.8 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 9.5 out of 10
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 8.8 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AtomEclipseIntelliJ IDEA
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(31 ratings)
7.8
(73 ratings)
9.7
(58 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.2
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(13 ratings)
6.8
(19 ratings)
8.9
(15 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AtomEclipseIntelliJ IDEA
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
Atom is great for simple HTML coding. It's fast, has intuitive shortcuts and several options. I particularly love the "convert spaces to tabs" function that I haven't seen in other editors.
I'm not sure how it would fair in more serious web development today, if there are plugins for live updates of the page you are working on...
But the problem is that it has been discontinued so you know there are no new features or fixes coming through.
Read full review
Open Source
I think that if someone asked me for an IDE for Java programming, I would definitely recommend Eclipse as is one of the most complete solutions for this language out there. If the main programming language of that person is not Java, I don't think Eclipse would suit his needs[.]
Read full review
JetBrains
This is a superb tool if your project involves a lot of backend development, especially in Java/Spring Boot and Kotlin. The support for the front end is great as well, but some developers may prefer to use the GitHub copilot add-on. I especially love using the GitHub copilot add-on. It may be less appropriate if your project requires heavy use of HotSwaps for backend debugging, as sometimes the support for that can be limited.
Read full review
Pros
Open Source
  • Atom is highly customizable and allows for various themes and extensions that can make your code easier to read.
  • Atom has many code hinting features that allow users to write faster and integrate with services likeLINT that can clean up your code once your done to meet your internal teams style choices.
  • It's very fast and manages projects well - Accessing other files within a related folder(s) is very easy and intuitive.
  • It's free!
Read full review
Open Source
  • Eclipse organizes imports well and does a good job presenting different programming languages.
  • Eclipse auto formats source code allowing customization and increased readability.
  • Eclipse reports errors automatically to users rather than logging it to the console.
  • Eclipse has coding shortcuts and auto-correction features allowing faster software development.
Read full review
JetBrains
  • Unit testing: Fully integrated into IntelliJ IDEA. Your unit tests will run smoothly and efficiently, with excellent debugging tools for when things get tricky.
  • Spring integration: Our Spring project using Maven works flawlessly in IntelliJ IDEA. I know firsthand that Apache is also easily and readily supported too. The integration is seamless and very easy to set up using IntelliJ IDEA's set up wizard when importing new projects.
  • Customization: IntelliJ IDEA comes out of the box with a bunch of handy shortcuts, as well as text prediction, syntax error detection, and other tools to help keep your code clean. But even better is that it allows for total customization of shortcuts you can easily create to suit your needs.
Read full review
Cons
Open Source
  • There should be a better user tips manual page to learn keyboard shortcuts
  • It would also be beneficial if mathematical and data analytic tools were added
  • it has quite high start-up timing when you open large projects to work on it
  • Sometimes, atom closed suddenly and do not open again
  • It still lacks better options with the previews even though there are already some by users adding plugins
  • It doesn't have self-correct features for lint errors, unlike IntelliJ
Read full review
Open Source
  • While the DB integration is broad (many connectors) it isn't particularly deep. So if you need to do serious DB work on (for example) SQL Server, it is sometimes necessary to go directly to the SQL Server Studio. But for general access and manipulation, it is ok.
  • The syntax formatting is sometimes painful to set up and doesn't always support things well. For example, it doesn't effectively support SCSS.
  • Using it for remote debugging in a VM works pretty well, but it is difficult to set up and there is no documentation I could find to really explain how to do it. When remote debugging, the editor does not necessarily integrate the remote context. So, for example, things like Pylint don't always find the libraries in the VM and display spurious errors.
  • The debugging console is not the default, and my choice is never remembered, so every time I restart my program, it's a dialog and several clicks to get it back. The debugging console has the same contextual problems with remote debugging that the editor does.
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JetBrains
  • Finding if a feature exists or not in IntelliJ IDEA can be challenging.
  • For example, if we know how to format a particular file, the command is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L, but if we don't, then finding it is difficult.
  • Setting up a project interpreter and directory structure might not be intuitive at first.
  • Git integration can be improved. For example, it isn't easy to rebase using UI in IntelliJ IDEA.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
Well Atom is open source so the re-new is a no brainer. The only way I would stop using Atom is if the developers somehow made it not function well. Or, if the project got forked to a commercial version or something. Or, there could be the case that development stops or that it was not updated on this or that platform
Read full review
Open Source
I love this product, what makes it one of the best tool out in the market is its ability to function with a wide range of languages. The online community support is superb, so you are never stuck on an issue. The customization is endless, you can keep adding plugins or jars for more functionalities as per your requirements. It's Free !!!
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JetBrains
VS Code is maturing and has a Scala plugin now. The overall experience with VS Code - for web development at least - is very snappy/fast. IntelliJ feels a bit sluggish in comparison. If that Scala plugin for VS Code is deemed mature enough - we may not bother renewing and resort to the Community Edition if we need it.
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Usability
Open Source
I give Atom a 9 because it is one of the most modern text editors built with JavaScript intentionally to allow the editor to be changed and modified with custom functionality that a team may need. I think I would otherwise give atom an 8 due to support, but it gets a 9/10 because of the extensibility/plugin capability.
Read full review
Open Source
It has everything that the developer needs to do the job. Few things that I have used in my day-to-day development 1. Console output. 2. Software flash functionality supporting multiple JTAG vendors like J-LINK. 3. Debugging capabilities like having a breakpoint, looking at the assembly, looking at the memory etc. this also applies to Embedded boards. 4. Plug-in like CMake, Doxygen and PlantUML are available.
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JetBrains
There is always room for improvement, but I haven't met any IDE that I liked more so far. Even if it did not fit a use case right out of the box, there is always a way to configure how it works to do just that.
Read full review
Support Rating
Open Source
Atom has an active forum and a Slack group where you can ask technical questions. Occasionally, the authors will pop in to answer a few questions here and there, but most of the time, its other helpful users who will assist you. Though they aren't the most knowledgeable, they are at least timely.
As for plugin support, that differs with each plugin, but as I mentioned before, many plugins are no longer maintained.
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Open Source
I gave this rating because Eclipse is an open-source free IDE therefore no support system is available as far as I know. I have to go through other sources to solve my problem which is very tough and annoying. So if you are using Eclipse then you are on your own, as a student, it is not a big issue for me but for developers it is a need.
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JetBrains
Customer support is really good in the case of IntelliJ. If you are paying for this product then, the company makes sure that you will get all the services adequately. Regular update patches are provided to improve the IDE. An online bug report makes it easier for the developers to find the solution as fast as possible. The large online community also helps to find the various solutions to the issues.
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Implementation Rating
Open Source
Just download and install
Read full review
Open Source
No answers on this topic
JetBrains
This installs just like any other application - its pretty straight forward. Perhaps licensing could be more challenging - but if you use the cloud licensing they offer its as simple as having engineers login to the application and it just works.
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
Our company likes to keep things open, and we don't want to prevent developers from customizing their environment the way they want. Atom seemed to be a lot more open than our existing tools and has good community support on pretty much any programming language. This can create some confusion since adding too many extensions or customizing can make the tool slower than it is supposed to be.
Read full review
Open Source
The installation, adaptability, and ease of usage for Eclipse are pretty high and simple compared to some of the other products. Also, the fact that it is almost a plug and play once the connections are established and once a new user gets the hang of the system comes pretty handy.
Read full review
JetBrains
Eclipse is just so old, like a dinosaur, compared to IntelliJ. There are still formats that Eclipse supports better, especially old and/or propriety ones. Still, most of the modern software development needs can be done on IntelliJ, & in a much better way, some of them are not even supported on Eclipse.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Open Source
  • The tool we use when we need quick fixes. Allows fast, reliable scripting to fix urgent problems in our applications.
  • When applications grow from 5-10 files to 100's, they need to be migrated to a heavier-duty IDE. This can be cumbersome and quite annoying, but is necessary to maintain code integrity on such a large scale (since it cannot be done with the limited default toolset of Atom).
Read full review
Open Source
  • This development environment offers the possibility of improving the productivity time of work teams by supporting the integration of large architectures.
  • It drives constant change and evolution in work teams thanks to its constant versioning.
  • It works well enough to develop continuous server client integrations, based on solid or any other programming principle.
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JetBrains
  • Easier to find bugs and debugs, thus reducing man hours and generating immediate dollar impact.
  • Coding time is lessened, which in turn again reduces man hours and generates immediate dollar impact.
  • Refactoring code is more innovative and easy here, resulting in more maintainable code.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IntelliJ IDEA Screenshots

Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA interface overview: the Project tool window (left) outlines the code structure and the Editor (right) is used to read, write, and explore the source code.Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA analyzing the context. It then suggests the most applicable and relevant code.Screenshot of the Search Everywhere window, where users can search for files, actions, classes, symbols, settings, UI elements, and anything in Git, all from a single entry point.Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA's support for frameworks with dedicated assistance for Spring and Spring Boot, Jakarta EE, JPA, Reactor, and other popular frameworks.Screenshot of the AI Assistant that provides features for software development. It can explain code, answer questions about code fragments, provide code suggestions, generate documentation, and commit messages.Screenshot of the interface to run queries, connect to databases, browse and export data, and manage schemas.